Nostalgia
by WaffleDragon
Summary: "In the summer of their fifth year they found a boat..." The summer of 1975 stands out vividly in the mind of Mary MacDonald and the Marauders. Events are always better in retrospect yet in this instance the memory was just as wonderful as the reality. An off-the-wall, marauders era drabble. Don't take it too seriously and enjoy :)


**A/N: Hi, guys! Forgive me for not proof reading this :L I'm sorry. But the good news is I'm back from my fanfiction career break…wait for it…under a different, more MATURE name. I put a link to my old page on my profile so you can see if I've improved :P**

**Apologies for the advert but the first chapter of a post-Hogwarts/Marauder fic is in progress which this acts as a vague prequel to so if you are interested watch out for that Enjoy!**

_Mary MacDonald Summer 1975_

In the summer of their fifth year they found a boat. It wasn't anything expensive or even entirely seaworthy but they loved it all the same. With the little wooden boat at their command the estuary beside Mary's house was suddenly open to them. Mary's parents were surprised by her seeming growth in popularity. The girls chose to spend most of their weekends together in that little house, the boys converging frequently with protestations that they'd miss them if they were deprived of their company for too long. Much to Lily's dismay James had named the little boat '_Lilyflower_'. Several attempts had been made to try and change it but none ever seemed to stick with the same determination. The _Lilyflower_ she was. Mary remembered with precision the pattern of the wood around the bow long smooth from its subjection to the sea. She remembered resting in it, her bare legs sticky with salt from the water tucked underneath her, the boat bobbing stubbornly on the water as James and Sirius fought between their masculinity and their pride in trying to row it.

The sea breeze played with their hair, lifting it into tangles that caressed their sunburnt necks and raw skin. The rocks around the estuary stood on guard, black and slick with weed as they rowed past.

That summer Mary remembered well. She remembered how taken Marlene had been with Sirius. Photograph after photograph lined her bottom draw of the pair of them. Hours were spent lounging on the jagged rocks made slightly more comfy by the spread of towels. Marlene had just bought a polka dot bikini of dark blue and white and was perfectly aware of how it made her look. She had wondered around in it all day even when they weren't swimming combined with only a pair of white shorts, her long dark hair freed from its school ponytail to kiss her lower back. She had enjoyed sunbathing, her head on Sirius's lap, Mary recalled. He had tried to play it casually when she made actions like that, leaning back to place his elbow where he would not disturb her and forcing himself to act like it was nothing out of the ordinary. Marlene's smile told them exactly how purposeful her actions were.

Then there was the day when their little boat was finally outmatched by the waves as a storm had surged in. Unable to use any of what they had learned in school they were forced to resort to accepting the help of the muggle life guards. Lily had found it incredibly amusing, her laughter only increasing when James had looked so irritated. He proceeded to try and dominate the life guards on the return journey, the _Lilyflower_ bobbing ashamedly on the tow line. Naturally he had only succeeded in embarrassing himself upon trying to show off his knowledge of the muggle world after casually inquiring as to how many 'bolts of electity' made their more advanced craft run. It was obvious when they reached the harbour that the men wanted rid of them.

After that James had got it into his head that he wanted to sail. The girls had awoken the morning after to find all four boys surrounding a battered old sailing boat lying on the sand of the beach below. Remus had been amused though he tried not to show it for his friend's sake, correcting his mistakes in rigging and muttering the correct terms in his ear. Sirius was far less considerate choosing instead to seat himself on the sand and cackle with laughter, kicking sand at the girls. After much deliberation Peter decided to join him.

It was roughly lunchtime when Sirius finally gave in and helped, pushing the boat, now shabbily rigged, into the sea. They had stood with it for a while, the water climbing up their trousers and the wind tugging at their hair while James desperately tried to sort through the jumble of ropes. When he finally declared, with much grandeur, that it was ready, none of the girls felt brave enough to trust him. Even Sirius, Remus and Peter backed out awkwardly.

James remained sulking for several hours after, shooting glares towards his abandoned project in the corner of the beach and muttering about how everything was pointless without magic. He had climbed up the rocks to sit under the shelter of the trees which overhung onto the soft sand. Eventually the tide had forced them out and they had run over the wet sand, a thin layer of water splashing around their gritty feet.

Mary dug deeper through the pictures. There were many of the girls: Marlene, Lily and Mary, arms around each other, grinning from ear to ear beneath their tangled waves of hair and making faces at the camera.

The path from the cottage down to the beach was by a dirty path through the woods. Mary consistently refused to wear shoes. "It's my holiday!" she had protested when Lily was forced to give her a piggy back down the dirty path, her own feet stumbling over the roots and loose stones. The boys had found it funny but Lily had refused to hand over her charge especially after James asked her to.

The beach they usually went to was massive at low tide and tiny at high, carpeted by soft golden sand that grey hot with the sun burning their feet. At one end the rocks and trees provided good shade and they sat there during the hottest parts of the day. Mostly they used the time for a rest, only venturing out onto the beach when the sun had begun its descent. Mary found several pictures of Lily wrapped up in her Gryffindor jumper, giggling at something behind the camera. Mary could all too well guess who it was. She did not remember falling asleep with her head on Remus's arm but she remembered her alarm when she had woken to find their faces millimetres apart. To his credit Remus had been just as shocked.

Then there was the tennis ball they had found in Mary's shed accompanied by three rackets for which they spent a great deal of the summer fighting over. She remembered them running up and down the shallows desperately trying to land a hit. Unsurprisingly James was the most adept and Lily got bored of it soon after that choosing instead to watch him beat each of them in turn with a frown on her face. When Marlene finally managed to draw a lucky win she had thrown her hands up in the air and cheered.

Her cold treatment of James did not last long, Mary remembered with a smile. Though she spent the first weeks shooting down his cheeky flirtations and laughing when he wrong-footed on the treacherous sandbank that led down from the forest to the beach, by the end she was dancing in his arms on the sand, eyes fixed on his. To that day Mary wasn't sure what had changed her mind but it had given her and Marlene something greatly amusing to tease her about during the evenings when the boys left for their own respective houses via the Flu Network.

They had loved that beach, spending their days running up and down it while the sun beat on, defying the usual British rain. A few times they even ventured on a hike up the sheer cliff paths, stumbling over the tussocks of thick grass and jagged stone. The boys found it easy, Sirius and James running up and down the cliff paths without even getting out of breath probably to annoy the girls. Lily had got so upset that she had shouted at James to stop and he had continued to tease her until she turned on her heel and stormed back only to be ran after by Marlene and convinced to return. It was the closest they had ever come to a fight, Mary remembered, for that summer at least. But James had redeemed himself by giving her the last of his water bottle which she had eventually shared with him.

But, and Mary's face flushed to remember it, they had not been the only couple who had been flung into a romance. After a long, hot day in which Peter had succeeded in perfecting a dive of the highest rock possible while the others watched cheering him on, everyone's mind was on finding a way to cool themselves and they headed for the ocean without a second thought. Yet neither she nor Remus had felt like going. They were giddy with laughter over some joke either he or she had made, Mary could no longer remember but the hilarity of whatever it had been still caused her lips to tug into a smile. They had walked along the beach in fits of giggles for many minutes until she calmed down enough to realise his eyes had not left her for the entire time they had been alone. Leaning in to kiss him had felt like the simplest, most natural thing to do and his response in wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her in kept adrenaline shooting from the tips of her fingers to her toes. They had moved to the shade of the trees, lying amongst the wildflowers that grew in the moss around the rocks, his body warm against hers.

When the others returned they had jumped apart both simultaneously agreeing to not talk about it to their friends straight away in order to avoid their friends ridicule. They should have known better. A picnic in the MacDonald's garden the next day saw to that when both had found themselves consistently drawn to one another, barely separating for more than a few seconds at a time until they were the subject of the eyes of the group.

"Has Lupin become magnetic in the last hour, Mary?" Marlene had teased, nudging her with her bare foot.

Mary had jumbled up her answer in a hasty denial that fell down as soon as the first accusation was thrown but Remus hadn't cared and in retrospect neither had she really though she had pretended to be furiously embarrassed at the time. And once their escapade was made into general knowledge they were free to continue them, strolling around the beach together, hands interlinked between them. Lily had found it cute, Mary thought. She had turned around many times to find her friend's eyes on them giving her a wink when she knew her gaze was being returned. Usually James Potter's arm was thrown around her neck in these incidents but Lily didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, Mary wasn't mistaken in thinking she was finally allowing herself to enjoy his attention.

The summer had ticked on delightfully. Sirius's attention to Marlene also increased with her continued effort into making him uncomfortable. Mary supposed with James and Lily finally reaching a strange reconciliation and Mary and Remus having a summer fling he wanted some of the same action. He took care to compliment Marlene often, usually in a way that sounded insincere as it fell from his tongue.

"He'll have to try harder than that," Marlene scoffed to her and Lily more than once as they parted for their own homes. Mary supposed this was her own way of making him pay for his playful nature where girls were concerned. Yet, Mary was sure Sirius's emotions were entirely genuine in this case.

Lily had laughed and Marlene had suggested she do the same with James. Lily had shaken her head at the comment and dismissed it once again repeating that she wanted nothing to do with him. The next day contradicted her as Mary had found them sitting in the sand together while Sirius, Remus and Peter played with the tennis racket, his hand resting on her thigh as they talked. Mary wondered if Lily knew how often she was fiddling with her hair.

Marlene had found her staring and led her away to the game mumbling something sarcastic about 'privacy'.

Evenings had found them curled up in blankets in the shade of the sheer cliffs around them. It was unsurprising really that every one of them found their ability to sleep enhanced with all their activity. A picture that had resided on the wall beside Mary's bed for many years depicted the six of them minus James who had been left the only one awake and taken a picture of all of them lying side by side in the sand.

Yet, even as the sun descended from the sky they had not been at loss for things to do. They had run along the beach as the world fell into orange, flip-flops dangling from their hand while the boys tried to pretend they weren't watching. Eventually, they abandoned the beach for the small town that lay around it, haunting the sea front benches. Mary remembered how she had been left to look after their belongings while they tried their luck at finding some of exciting drink to consume. Remus had stayed with her, skinny frame leant against the back of her seat. Mary's mood always seemed to warm when he was with her.

They watched the sunset almost every evening of that summer, the bright orange reflected off of the sea. Mary had never thought it of much interest then. It was just the end of another day and there was much to be decided in preparation for the next. There was always the same certainty that the sun would rise once more bringing with it new opportunities for amusement and entertainment, new mistakes to make and new risks to take. There was always some goal to be achieved, some kiss to steal, somebody to tease. Never had she ever considered the prospect that their days might be numbered, that they would reach a sunset when the sun might set for one of them never to rise. Yet, Mary stood at her window as the blistering heat of summer left her. It was not the young girl she had been that was reflected. Her hair was no more golden with the sun and there were lines of worry around her eyes where there hadn't used to be. She looked as worn and weary as she felt.

The clock in her bedroom ticked onwards towards the next hour and her grip on her wand tightened. This night would bring her pain in some way or the other, it would bring her fear and it would bring her worry. She would leave her small house once more in the twilight to embark on another piece of work for the Order, her friends standing beside her as they had been that summer as they had watched the sun set. But this time there was no assurance that she or her friends would be there to see it rise again. There was no knowing at all.

The minute hand struck the hour. Mary swallowed her usual bout of nerves and closed her eyes to apparate. There was never any knowing in a time of war.

**Thanks for reading, guys! You know what to do **


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